Chapter 27
After taking a deep breath, he calmed his expression.
“My bride, my only confidante, how could you speak so kindly toward the usurper who has invaded our paradise? I am your true partner. I am Frankenstein! The creator who has inherited the name of my Father, a god, and your everything!”
“Partner? Husband, what’s a partner?”
Lia tilted her head and looked at me.
“It’s similar to ‘husband.’”
“But you’re already my husband, aren’t you?”
“I mean, a partner is someone you love and spend your whole life with.”
“Does my husband love me?”
“What? What are you saying all of a sudden?”
“But you said ‘partner’ and ‘husband’ are similar.”
Her endless questions made my head throb.
What was I supposed to do with this innocent girl?
As her questions continued, Frankenstein’s expression grew increasingly grim.
He finally opened his mouth.
“Is this the effect of the mark? To think you’ve been bewitched by a mere insect. I shall open your eyes.”
With that, he waved his hand.
Countless magic circles appeared in the air, glowing brightly.
A surge of powerful mana filled the space.
From those magic circles, a downpour of magical attacks began to rain upon us.
I created a massive shield and hid behind it.
A tremendous impact reverberated through the shield.
You might think it strange for Frankenstein’s monster to use magic—but the truth was, he was a being created by assembling only the most superior and beautiful traits of various creatures.
Transcendent physical ability, exceptional intelligence, rapid learning…
Because of that, the Monster had mastered all the secret magic techniques of the renowned magical family, the Frankenstein Family, the moment it was born.
Considering Lia’s own learning ability, it wasn’t hard to understand.
When the barrage of magic finally subsided, I summoned my sword and gripped it tightly, preparing to fight properly.
The moment the bombardment ended, I began my counterattack.
Crash!
A giant hand burst through the black shield.
It was his hand.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
So he had hidden my vision with the magic rain and used that time to break through my defense?
The creature tried to wrench the shield from my grasp.
I instantly dissolved the shield into darkness and thrust the sword in my other hand toward him.
The jet-black blade pierced through his abdomen and emerged from his back.
Yet, he didn’t seem to feel pain—if anything, he pressed forward, driving the sword deeper himself.
Getting caught by that hand would be dangerous.
I released my sword and jumped back to widen the distance.
He stared blankly at the sword stuck in his belly, then reached toward it.
At that moment, I transformed the sword into spikes.
Thorns burst out from the embedded blade, impaling his body from all directions.
For a moment, his movement stopped.
Not missing my chance, I summoned a war hammer and charged at him.
He sneered coldly at my approach.
“Petty tricks.”
When he grasped the transformed sword with his hand, the blade began to melt in an instant.
Through his tattered clothes, I could see the glimmering jewels embedded in his chest.
So he really had gathered all the Hearts already?
In the game Become a Hero, there were two versions of Frankenstein.
The weakened Frankenstein, who hadn’t collected the Hearts, and the complete Frankenstein, who had regained his full power by collecting all of them.
The weakened version used superior physical ability and magic as his weapons, but once he became complete, his patterns expanded.
That included the Frankenstein Family’s secret spells—Disassembly and Combination.
It was exactly as the names suggested: deconstructing and merging objects to recreate them anew.
Continuous damage attacks through disassembly.
Status attacks that prevented recovery by alternating between disassembly and combination.
And finally, the ability to recreate matter or life itself into weapons or allies.
Truly, one of the most troublesome bosses—capable of inflicting every kind of status ailment imaginable.
He disassembled my sword and combined it with his own fallen flesh, creating a blade of writhing flesh.
He stomped the ground and lunged at me, swinging the grotesque weapon.
A clean, unhesitating downward slash—no wasted movement.
There wasn’t a single opening to exploit in his swing.
I formed a new sword and met his strike head-on.
Our swords clashed dozens of times midair.
Each collision sent tremors through my entire body.
‘At this rate, I’ll be overpowered.’
I deflected his sword and drew upon the power of the demon.
My mana hadn’t fully recovered yet, but aside from the 【Dark Relic】, I could probably use one more authority.
The Authority of 【Mighty Strength】.
An immense power flooded my body, and the sword in my hand felt as light as a feather.
Sensing danger, Frankenstein hastily layered multiple defensive spells around himself.
Asura Divine Art — Immortal’s Guiding Finger.
Kwa-ga-ga-ga-gang!
A fierce shockwave erupted, my sword piercing through his layered defenses and cutting into his flesh.
“Guaaaaaahhhh!”
A deafening scream tore from his throat, shaking the air and stirring up a massive cloud of dust.
I swung my sword, dispersing the haze.
Soon, his figure emerged.
Frankenstein’s appearance was wretched—half of his body blown away, barely managing to stand.
Lia, who had been watching the battle in a trance, ran up to me.
“Husband, you’re amazing! You defeated the monster!”
“Hey—why would you say that?”
“Why? Was I not supposed to?”
“Lines like ‘Did we beat it?’ are cursed words—they can bring even dying enemies back to life.”
“I don’t understand.”
Lia tilted her head in confusion.
Well, of course she wouldn’t get modern-world memes.
The boss fight had ended more easily than expected, but this outcome actually made sense.
In Become a Hero, I had cleared this boss dozens of times. For me—armed with far better stats and broken skills—to lose to him would’ve been stranger.
I drove my sword into the chest of the thing that was crawling on the floor like a worm with half its body blown away.
“Now this tedious place and I are done with each other.”
I infused the blade with the Flames of Gehenna to finish it.
The flames that ran along the blade swallowed Frankenstein in an instant.
He burned in the blaze and muttered something.
“Why…… why…….”
“Are you bitter about defeat?”
“Whywhywhywhywhywhy.”
He didn’t seem to hear me; his gaze shifted toward Lia.
Even while he was burning, he didn’t tear his eyes away from her—it was chilling.
He vomited rage at Lia as if wailing.
“Why—why would you, my only confidante, call me a monster!”
At that, Lia flinched and trembled.
“Hic—!”
“Me, the same, you…… I thought you would understand me! The unprovoked hostility and hate, the endless despair and loneliness—I thought you would understand……!”
Tears welled in his flaming eyes and were erased by the Flames of Gehenna.
I drove the sword even deeper into his chest.
Cough!
“Don’t spout nonsense—who do you expect to understand your past and misery? That child who had only just opened her eyes to the world?”
“Shut up……! You know nothing.”
“What don’t I know? You’re just resentful that only you were miserable, aren’t you.”
Even as his body burned, he shifted and glared at me as if he would kill me.
“I only wanted to escape that, that damned loneliness!”
“So you kidnapped countless people and made them into monsters, claiming them as family? You’re nothing but a hideous monster who killed people under the pretense of misery.”
He tried to say something to my words, but he could no longer speak.
The Flames of Gehenna had devoured his vocal cords.
His voice was reduced to a mangled, bestial roar.
“Krrrraaaaaah!”
Frankenstein’s final death-throes echoed through the blazing mansion.
Rumble.
Then the ground began to shake violently.
“What the—?”
This event hadn’t happened in the game.
In the game, when Frankenstein was defeated, he died quietly without any last spasms.
The dungeon should have cleared right then.
But instead of clearing, what was that endless horde of monsters?
Could this be his last desperate thrash?
To stop it, I had to annihilate him completely.
I intended to pour even more mana into the sword to obliterate him entirely.
“Kkeeeeek!”
At that moment, a monster flew at me like a slingshot and latched onto me.
Of all times to cling to me.
I tried to tear the creature off my face, but it clung stubbornly, blocking my vision and harassing me.
Meanwhile, the swarming monsters shoved me aside and devoured Frankenstein’s dying body.
This felt like a boss entering phase two.
Then the monsters began acting strangely.
They started devouring the ones beside them.
Each time they ate one another, they grew bigger.
Damn it—phase two or not, I didn’t want any more variables.
I sensed it instinctively.
I had to stop that.
“Lia! Stop those monsters!”
The punching Lia did earlier would probably help against those small fry.
“……”
But Lia didn’t answer my call.
“Lia! This is urgent—come on—!”
I turned to find Lia.
“Lia……?”
But Lia, who had been right behind me moments before, was nowhere to be seen.
As if she had never existed.
“What the hell……”
Meanwhile, those monsters had begun eating each other and winnowing their numbers down until only one remained, growing huge.
A massive body patched together with bloody flesh.
Its skin bubbled as if boiling.
Countless human faces began to burst out from every part of its body.
I grimaced at the sight.
The many faces filling its body were contorted as if they were undergoing terrible torture.
Isn’t this screwed?
“Kkeeeeek!”
At the same time, the faces embedded in the massive body screamed in unison, the noise assaulting my ears and making me instinctively clamp my hands over them.
The creature’s body writhed, inflating and shrinking repeatedly as a new form took shape.
“Uuuhhhhh.”
The figure that had once looked like a corpse-like but handsome man had degenerated into something no different from the other grotesques patched with many people.
Ugly, revolting—an image that provoked disgust.
He opened his closed eyes.
His eyes were now filled with countless pupils that moved independently.
The many pupils fixed on me.
I swallowed at the transformed figure.
This was on par with me—or beyond.
Had his rank risen this suddenly?
Frankenstein spoke.
“This is because of you. Because of you she lost her way. If you hadn’t existed… if you hadn’t existed, she would have become the mother of a new humanity with me. Everything was ruined because of you!”
His voice buzzed like hundreds of beings speaking at once, the sound swelling like those pupils.
“Disgusting brat.”
I gripped my sword and lunged at him.
“The mother of a new humanity? The only confidante? What you wanted was merely a pet that suited your circumstances. Did Lia ever agree to become your bride in the first place?”
“Shut up!”
He stretched a gigantic hand and hurled it at me.
The damned start of phase two.